Skip to content

What Risso’s dolphins in the Azores can teach us

What Risso’s dolphins in the Azores can teach us

First we saw the white movement, gracefully weaving under the water. The unmistakeable turquoise water above a pod of mature Risso’s dolphins who were swimming just below the surface, at some distance from our boat, off Pico in the Azores. This made me feel at home, we see the same behaviour in our own study…

Read More

Risso’s dolphins rule in the Azores!

We’d seen the blows from land, so we knew as we approached from a mile or so that the disturbance on the otherwise flat calm surface of the deep offshore ocean was significant. But what we found surpassed our expectations. Northern bottlenose whales, like all beaked whales, are very poorly understood. So as we slowly…

Read More

Risso's dolphins caught on camera by WDC field team

WDC’s field team in the Outer Hebrides recently recorded this great video footage of Risso’s dolphins in the surrounding waters.  Stomach contents from strandings data from a limited number of UK Risso’s dolphins shows that their primary prey is octopus. However, a recent report by scientists shows that the relationship between the observed distributions of Risso’s…

Read More

Seaweed and friends make a welcome return to the Isle of Lewis

“I recognise that dolphin” … “And that one” … uttered by me but still sweet music to my ears. Its hugely exciting when we spot a pod of dolphins and even more satisfying when through the cameras lens I recognise an individual that we’ve seen several years before. Obviously I can only confirm the match…

Read More

Risso’s dolphins spotted off Bardsey Island in the UK

Imagine kayaking across a flat calm, almost mirror like ocean, on a balmy sunny day, only to have your path crossed by a small pod of Risso’s dolphins! Well, this is exactly what happened to Justine Curgenven as she paddled from Morfa Nefyn on the Lleyn Peninsula in North Wales, to Bardsey Island. Not long…

Read More